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Why Creative Writing?

In addition to mentorship by our stellar faculty, the top-tier MFA program at the University of Minnesota offers writers three years to fully devote themselves to the creation of a manuscript. Our students form a close-knit community of writers, readers, and scholars. We encourage a multi-genre approach: students take workshops outside their primary genre, writing and reading in and outside of their comfort zones. They also take coursework outside the English department—in fields like art, dance, history, and sociology—to support the writing of a book-length work of prose or poetry. And every student is fully funded for all three years of the program.

Opportunities extend beyond the writing workshop. Beginning in fall 2016, we are proud to present Great River Review, the oldest literary journal in the state of Minnesota. The journal is run by students in our MFA program.

It’s hard to find a community more supportive of the arts than the Twin Cities. We’re home to the Loft Literary Center and the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, just across the Mississippi River from the East Bank campus. Minneapolis and St. Paul are fixtures on any list of “most literate cities.” We boast more theater seats per capita than any American city outside of New York. We’re also home to excellent small presses like Graywolf Press, Milkweed Editions, and Coffee House Press. Many of our current and former students have received paid internships at these presses. Our students and graduates also find summer jobs teaching youth and adult programming at the Loft Literary Center.